Category: Windows(2003/2008/2012)

Host was not reachable on network. When checked on ILO server is up and running. When I try to ping the server its unresponsive.Host is a blade server, hence suspected an issue with the network module. Therefore, connected virtual connect. Found one of the virtual connect module was degraded. When analysed the HP Virtual connect found an error message stating “Port was disabled because a pause flood was detected”

Further to this when validated the server port assigned to the bay1/bay2 found the status “Not Linked/Pause Flood Detected”. It confirms the issue was caused by pause Flood. In some cases, a flex-10 port can enter into disabled state due to the triggering of “pause-flood”, or network-loop. You can confirm the same port status using Virtual Connect Manager CLI. Connect to Virtual connect using SSH and Execute the below command:

Show port-protect

This would show the blade server that’s in impact. To fix the issue, please execute the below command:

reset port-protect

Verify the port status again using the command “show port-protect” and ensure no port’s protect types are reported as “Pause Flood”.
Another action plan would be to update the Drivers and Firmwares.

You can also disable is using the command listed belowset port-protect pauseFlood=Disabled

Recently got an update from the application team that they are unable to install and software. When executing the setup file they are getting an error pop-up window stating “Could not access VBscript run time for custom action.”. This issue was fixed using below steps:

VMware tools 10.0.0 is now no more dependent on vSphere release/Esxi builds. I think this is the first time when VMware released VMware Tools separately. As per release note its backward compatible, compatible with Esxi 5.0 and also compatible with Workstation 12.0 and VMware Fusion 8.0. It will allow to get the latest new features and enhancements made to the VMware tools faster to the customers.

You can download and install the latest version of VMware Tools from Here.

As discussed earlier there was an issue with the AD authentication and connectivity. It was all because of the different time zone set on an ESX host and the guest operating system. Changing time on DC was not recommended by the AD Team as the impact was unknown and similarly we have no clue on the impact due to time change on ESX cluster. Hence, I decided to manually do the time sync between the ESX host and Guest machine.

Time sync status was validation using the command:
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe timesync status

Enter the command to enable or disable periodic time synchronization.
VMwareToolboxCmd.exe timesync Enable/Disable

Unable to connect to the Remote Desktop. Server operating system is Windows Server 2012 Standard R2. When we try to RDP, we get the below error message:

The connection cannot be completed because the remote computer that was reached is not the one you specified. This could be caused by an outdated entry in the DNS cache. Try using the IP address of the computer instead of the name.

There was two server with same configuration and setting but one of connecting to RDP with AD authentication whereas the other was not working. One was physical and the other was virtual hosted on an ESX host.
RDP on physical was good and the issue was with the virtual host. It was confirmed that the issue was due to time latency.
Therefore, this issue was due to the time difference between the virtual machine and the NTP server set on an ESX host.
This issue was later fixed by synchronizing the server time with the ESX host.

Note:
If you do not wish to have auto sync, disable the Windows Time service or block the outbound port 123 on your local firewall.

Recently, I was installing Windows 2008 R2 on a HP ProLiant DL380 Gen9 server. Found that the server was throwing an error message stating “Windows could not finish configuring the system.”. When you click on “OK”, servers gets automatic reboot and shows again the same error.

When searched on google, I found that this error message occurs with Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems if the system contains a registry key that is larger than 8 kilobytes (KB). A Hotfix for this problem is available from Microsoft

Came across an issue, where users were unable to connect to the Windows 2008 using RDP. When checked the RDP port 3389, its not listed under netstat -ano. Therefore, tried uninstalling the remote desktop services and reinstalled it multiple times. Was still unlucky and issue persists.

Finally was able to fix the issue by deleting the terminal services connection and recreating it.

Well, found that the same script is working fine when executed as Run as Administrator. Validated the UAC and found that its already disabled on control panel.

Later its found that, disabling UAC will not help in executing the scripts and the UAC has to be disabled in registry by following below steps:

1. Open registry using “regedit”.2. Browse to the following registry key:“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem”3. Double-Click the EnableLUA Key on the right and Change the value data from 1 (UAC Enabled) to 0 (UAC Disabled).